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Anecdotal Notes in Small-Group Reading: Tips and Free Templates
There’s nothing worse than sitting at your small-group reading table without a plan. Do the students in front of you need help with blending? Do they need support with digraphs, magic e, comprehension? Time flies when you’re working with a small group, so having a clear understanding of what your students know and need can…
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Planning for Small Group Instruction: Reading in Kindergarten and 1st Grade
Planning for small group instruction in your K-1 classroom can feel like a daunting task, but with a little thoughtful preparation and some practical tips, small-group reading can become the highlight of your teaching day! Whether you’re looking to create groups, fine-tune your schedule, or streamline your lesson-planning, I’ve got some tried and true strategies…
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How to Choose and Use Nonsense Words in Structured Literacy Lessons
Imagine walking into a kindergarten or 1st-grade classroom where the students are hard at work decoding words. As you walk from table to table, you see the students looking confident in their decoding skills and you hear words being read, like: “tup,” “lun,” “jop,” and “rit” Wait, WHAT?!? Those aren’t real words. You’re right, they’re…
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Tips for Teaching Capitals and Punctuation using Multisensory Strategies
i love baking my family and friends Wait, what?! Before you cast me as the wicked witch of Hansel and Gretel, I promise my cooking habits are nothing to be alarmed about! Let’s try that again: I love baking, my family, and friends. Suddenly, the narrative shifts completely – less like a horror story and…
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How To Assess Students in Reading Using Decodable Running Records
The goal of our small reading groups is to help kids make progress at their individual levels. Using decodable texts has been a game-changer in reading the past few years! We know that each student’s reading journey is as unique as a fingerprint, but finding tools to assess students in reading that align with the…
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Top 8 Picture Books for Teaching Beginning Writers
Every teacher I know loves a good picture book, especially if it helps us to teach an important concept. When it comes to teaching beginning writers, I always use picture books! Picture books are perfect for supporting students in the drawing and storytelling stage. The Drawing Stage Oftentimes in kindergarten, students are rushed to write…
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7 Key Components to Elevate Your Small Group Reading Lessons
Are you comfortable teaching small-group reading? Do you always know what you’re going to do and have no problem planning your lessons? Or, do you struggle to plan your lessons and visualize how they will work in your small groups? With the shift happening in guided reading to follow the research behind the science of…
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7 Steps For a Successful First Small Group Reading Session
Your first small group reading session is going to set the tone for the whole school year. So, it’s important to keep a few things in mind as you plan it! If you’re wondering exactly what I do the first time I meet with my small groups for reading, get ready for a peek inside…
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Setting Up Your Small Group Reading Corner: 5 Must Haves!
If you’re wondering how to set up your small group reading corner and what tools you’ll need to get started, I’ve got you covered! This is the first post in our Small-Group Reading series. Read part two here, and part three here. Kindergarten and first-grade teachers know the importance of minimizing waiting time for our…
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How to Teach the Silent E Rule (or Magic E) to your students
Whether you call it VCE, Magic E, or Silent E rule, it’s a phonics rule that makes a huge impact on decoding. It opens up SO many more words to decode for students used to reading simple CVC words. It’s also my favorite phonics rule to teach! In this post, I’ll explain what the Silent…
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All About Decodable Texts: What They Are & How to Use Them!
Are you tired of watching your young readers struggle with reading like they’re trying to decode hieroglyphics? For years, I used mostly leveled texts in my guided reading groups, before I learned about the power of decodable texts. When students are learning to read, they need decodable texts! Providing your students with text they can…
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How to Teach Digraphs: 8 Ways to Make it Fun!
I love cheese and I love salsa both on their own. Yum, yum, yum. BUT… when you put them together and make queso, it’s a match made in heaven! The cheese and the salsa come together to make something even better together than they are on their own! That reminds me of digraphs! You take…